Boake / Kathuria Project Management for Lawyers

1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-1-78742-701-3
Verlag: Globe Law and Business
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 115 Seiten

In a highly competitive fee-focused environment, project management can be your law firm's lifeline. Project Management for Lawyers report provides a structured approach to planning, pricing and managing legal work that will boost profitability and deliver superior value to your clients. It aims to: *Demonstrate the value of applying project management to a legal practice; *Explain basic project management principles and how to apply them within your law firm; *Provide a simple legal project management framework; *Describe key tools and techniques to support the framework; *Discuss legal project management as a pricing and business development strategy; *Show how lawyers can manage matter profitability and demonstrate value to clients; *Guide lawyers in overcoming the challenges in managing a matter profitably (time, scope and cost); and, *Share practical advice on how to develop and implement a legal project management programme within your firm. Real-life in-depth case studies provide valuable insight into the successful legal project management programmes of Dechert LLP, Eversheds LLP, Seyfarth Shaw LLP and McCarthy Tetrault. A case study from the Royal Bank of Canada is also included to provide the a client's perspective on the value of legal project management. Project Management for Lawyers also comes with a complimentary CDRom packed with useful forms, templates, checklists and frameworks that can be used immediately in planning and executing your own project management programme. These include: *A generic work plan; *A sample staffing profile; *A sample agenda for a project kick-off meeting; *A sample roles and responsibilities sheet; *A client satisfaction review questionnaire; *A project risk log; *A sample change request form; *A sample monitoring worksheet; *An example of an agenda for a lessons learned session; *An example of how to calculate leverage on matter profitability; *A completed monitoring worksheet; and *A work plan for an asset purchase.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Boake, Barbara

Kathuria, Rick

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Part One: Legal Project Management Best Practice - A Framework, Tools and Techniques Chapter 1: The business case for project management.3 The shift in the balance of power from seller to buyer.3 Embracing business realities.3 The growth of in-house legal departments.4 The fragmentation of the legal services market.5 The increasing demand for alternative fee arrangements (AFAs).6 The business case - Six compelling reasons.6 Chapter 2: Project management foundational principles.9 What is project management?.9 What is a project?.9 Project management versus process management.10 The triple constraints.10 The project sponsor.12 The project manager.12 Project management processes.13 The project life cycle.13 The importance of 'process assets'.14 A few rules to live by.14 Chapter 3: A simple legal project management framework.17 Legal mandates are projects.17 Legal mandates have four project stages.17 Each project stage has two project management tasks and one project management deliverable.18 Your client participates at every stage of the project.18 A project manager's responsibilities can be delegated.19 Designing a framework that works.19 Chapter 4: Defining a project.21 Establishing project objectives.21 A word about quality.21 Understanding and managing client expectations.22 Prioritising the triple constraints.23 Active listening.23 The scope document.24 A project definition model.25 Chapter 5: Planning a project.27 A word about planning.27 Planning tasks - The work breakdown structure.28 Estimating costs - The certainty factor.29 A word about contingency.30 The importance of assumptions.30 Staffing - The benefits of mindfulness.31 Example of a project plan.31 Establishing a schedule - Understanding the critical path.31 Establishing a baseline - Discussing the plan with your client.34 Identifying and addressing risks.35 A planning model.37 Chapter 6: Project execution.39 Project kick-off.39 Subsequent team meetings.41 A team meeting model.41 Chapter 7: Monitoring a project.43 Keeping projects on track.43 Earned value.43 The monitoring worksheet.44 Monitoring with phase and/or task codes.48 Status reports.48 Managing change requests.48 Addressing cost variances.49 Addressing schedule variances.50 Managing client expectations.51 The monitoring model.51 Chapter 8: Evaluating a project.53 Leveraging your work product.53 Exploiting process assets.53 Obtaining client feedback.53 Saving project documents.54 Project Management for Lawyers The lessons learned meeting.55 The evaluation model.56 Chapter 9: Linking project management to pricing strategies.59 Basic practice economics.59 Maximise profitability through efficiency and leverage.61 Managing AFAs.62 Chapter 10: Developing your own framework - A project plan.65 Threshold decisions.65 Setting objectives.65 Scope.66 The project plan.66 The timeline.66 Creative scheduling.67 Risks.67 Assembling a project team.68 Finding champions - The steering committee.68 Administrative support.69 The communication plan.70 Part Two: Case Studies Case study 1: McCarthy Tetrault LLP - Legal project management - A strategic priority for the firm.73 A strategic initiative.73 Keeping it simple.73 Dialogue Project ManagementTM.74 The role of the project manager.74 Tools.75 Training.76 Consulting with clients.76 External communications - Branding.76 The importance of internal communication.76 Dialogue Project ManagementTM in practice.77 Case study 2: Dechert LLP - Developing best practice in legal project management.79 The six lessons learned.79 The value of support departments.82 Project management - A department in itself?.84 Case study 3: Eversheds LLP - Achieving certainty in cost, scope and time.87 Project management origins in litigation.87 Training.88 The end result.88 Using project management in non-contentious work.89 The project management resources.90 Benefits for the client.90 Case study 4: Seyfarth Shaw LLP - Building an effective service delivery programme for clients.91 The history of the programme.91 Applications of 'SeyfarthLean'.92 Results.94 Case study 5: Royal Bank of Canada - A client's perspective on law firm pricing.95 Working with external counsel to manage costs.95 Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs).96 The right pricing model for RBC.97 Innovative ways of working - Using portals and 'Lean Six Sigma'.97 Outsourcing.98 The importance of communication.98 A mutually-beneficial partnership.99 Part Three: Appendices Appendix 1: An asset purchase Gantt chart.103 Appendix 2: A generic work plan.105 Appendix 3: A work plan for an asset purchase.107 Appendix 4: A completed monitoring worksheet.109 Appendix 5: A sample staffing profile.111 Appendix 6: A sample change request form.113 Index.115

Über Autor(innen)

This report report is a compilation of knowledge, best practices and lessons learned by two individuals with different but complementary backgrounds. Barbara Boake is a senior partner at McCarthy Tetrault LLP, practising in the areas of bankruptcy, insolvency and restructuring. With over 20 years of practice experience and having served on her firm's board of partners and its executive team, Barbara was named one of the 'Top 100 Most Powerful Women' in Canada by the Women's Executive Network. While a member of her firm's executive team she was responsible for leading the development and implementation of the firm's 'Dialogue Project ManagementA" programme. Barbara speaks regularly on all aspects of project management for the legal profession. Rick Kathuria is a professional engineer, certified management consultant and a certified project management professional with over 15 years of experience working on large international projects at top tier consulting firms, before starting his own consulting firm. His projects included managing multimillion dollar projects internationally, as well as the implementation of internal project management offices for several of his clients. He also serves in a leadership role in operating the Project Management Institute's 'Legal Project Management Community of Practice'. He has been working with McCarthy Tetrault LLP as head of its IT development group and director of its project management office, where he oversees major implementation projects. He has spent the last few years working with senior partners of the firm to develop project management training and he designed the tools that they are currently using. In this capacity, he was also responsible for delivering training to lawyers and providing ongoing coaching to help them effectively project manage their legal mandates. Both authors began with a blank slate and created a legal project management programme that is changing the way the firm's lawyers plan, price and deliver legal work. This report is a guide through this challenging, but very rewarding process.